Blood Counts

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jacquot. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

  ‘De rien – it’s nothing,’ said the nurse. ‘When you want to leave, my colleague will let you out.’ Stepping back she closed the doors and Jacquot heard the double click of the lock.

  There were no other patients in the courtyard and he wondered whether Noël had been brought here for the meeting rather than have it conducted in his cell – for that was surely what all those locked doors had been that he had passed in the corridor. With a brief nod to the second nurse, answered with a quick glance and tight smile before she returned to her crossword puzzle, Jacquot headed for the bench and sat down beside Gilbert.

  ‘Hello, Noël. Remember me? Daniel Jacquot. From Cavaillon.’

  He hadn’t expected any response and he didn’t get any.

  Gilbert didn’t move. Not a blink, not a murmur. No sign even of breath being drawn. Not a single movement. He could have been a shop-window dummy propped beside Jacquot on the bench. He was pale and gaunt and looked several kilos lighter than the last time Jacquot had seen him, back in that empty guest room at Le Mas Bleu.

  Noting the bandaged forearms, Jacquot crossed his legs and made himself comfortable, in no hurry, playing much the same game as he’d played that Sunday morning at the hotel. He looked up at the tiny square of sky, just like Gilbert, and let his gaze wander down the brick walls, counting the windows, the diamond patterns, catching every now and then a passing shape or shadow beyond the glass. A pigeon clattered into the lightwell, circled the courtyard looking for a perch, then thought better of it and made a hasty retreat.

  ‘Pigeon breasts. Delicious,’ said Jacquot, softly. ‘Cold. From the fridge. With hot mashed potatoes.’ He didn’t expect an answer; he didn’t get one. More minutes passed in a strange, almost companionable, silence.

  Finally, Jacquot reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He held them up for the nurse to see. She nodded; he could smoke if he wished. He lit up, left the packet and lighter between him and Gilbert, and started to smoke.

  He was half way through his cigarette when Gilbert shifted on the bench, worked his neck as though it was stiff from looking at the sky, and drew in his legs.

  ‘Can I have one?’ he asked. His voice sounded cracked, dry.

  ‘Help yourself.’

  Over on her chair, the nurse heard Gilbert’s voice and looked up from her crossword.

  Jacquot didn’t turn, kept his eyes fixed on the far wall, but he knew that the other man was looking at him. He was right.

  ‘I know you, don’t I?’

  Jacquot nodded. He heard the cigarette packet being shaken and the rasp of his lighter. There was an indrawing of smoke and a low, halting exhalation.

  ‘I remember now. You were kind. Thank you.’

  Jacquot said nothing, tapped some ash from his cigarette.

  They smoked on in silence for a few minutes more.

  ‘They think I’m going to kill myself.’

  ‘You try it once, that’s what they do. Reckon you’re going to do it again.’

  ‘Sometimes I want to. Early in the morning is the worst, when I wake up. And remember.’

  Jacquot nodded, dropped his cigarette onto the path and ground it out with his shoe.

  ‘Early morning’s always bad. That’s what happens when you lose someone.’

  ‘Other people feel like this?’

  ‘Sometimes not as bad. Sometimes worse. It depends.’

  Gilbert took a last drag of his cigarette and flicked the stub on to the gravel where it let off a coil of smoke, then died.

  ‘Why are you here? Why do you want to see me?’

  ‘I want you to look at some photos.’

  ‘Identify someone?’

  ‘Well, that would be very useful. If you can.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Gilbert, sitting straighter, turning towards him.

  Jacquot straightened up too, reached into his pocket. As he did so he noticed that the nurse had put down her newspaper and was watching them.

  ‘Just three pictures,’ he said, sliding the photos from an envelope. Before he could offer them, Gilbert had taken them from him. They were the photos taken at the church, in the street and going through the gates to the Blanchards’ farm, but without the red circles.

  Gilbert shuffled through them, held them together like a hand of cards. Then, one by one, he lifted them up, turned them to the light, and scrutinised them.

  ‘See anyone in particular?’ asked Jacquot.

  Gilbert nodded. ‘These two,’ he said, holding the cards together again, pointing with a finger.

  Jacquot smiled. ‘Those two, okay. And two, you say? Not three?’

  Gilbert looked at the images a little longer.

  ‘I think it was just the two of them.’

  ‘So, can you identify them? Do you know them?’

  Gilbert shook his head.

  ‘Men or women?’

  Another shake of the head.

  And then, ‘Are they the ones?’ Gilbert didn’t have to add – who killed Izzy.

  ‘Right now, all we want to know is who they are,’ replied Jacquot. ‘If anyone recognises them. So we can cross them off our list.’

  ‘I don’t know who they are, but I do remember them. Seeing them there.’

  ‘Any reason?’

  Gilbert nodded, sighed.

  ‘They were the only people I saw that day who didn’t smile.’

  12

  NAMES WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD, a solid identification, even a confirmation as to gender – male or female. But the fact that Noël Gilbert had picked out from the crowds the two unidentified people that they had narrowed it down to, that he remembered them, for not smiling, for not being caught up like everybody else in the joy and happiness and celebration of a country wedding, meant that the trip to the Institut Briand had not been entirely wasted. But as he headed south, back to Cavaillon, what Jacquot couldn’t get over was what had happened when he’d said goodbye to Gilbert and tried to leave.

  The young man had seized his hands and squeezed them tight, pinning him to the bench.

  ‘Take me with you,’ he’d pleaded, his face just centimetres from Jacquot’s, tears flooding into his eyes. ‘I’m fine. I won’t do it again. I’m fine, I promise you.’

  Minutes earlier he’d seemed so normal – smoking, talking, looking at the photos. Remembering. Yet suddenly he seemed gripped by a kind of manic desperation.

  ‘She’ll look after me . . . Izzy. She’ll make sure I’m okay, you’ll see.’

  ‘Time for the nice Monsieur to go,’ the nurse had said, after hurrying over, trying to loosen Gilbert’s grip on Jacquot. When she finally managed it, his body slumped. His arms and hands went loose, but the nurse still held on to them.

  ‘I think you’d better leave now,’ she’d told Jacquot. ‘I’ve called for someone to show you out.’ And she’d nodded to the door across the yard.

  Forty minutes later, parking in the basement at Cavaillon police headquarters, Jacquot still hadn’t quite been able to shake off the feelings of shock and sadness. They were right to have sent Gilbert to Briand. There was no way they could let him go from there. Not yet. As he reached the squad room and passed through to his office, Jacquot wondered just how much time it would take before they could. Swinging off his jacket, he hung it on the back of his chair and sat himself down. He was lighting a cigarette when the phone started ringing.

  ‘Oui, Jacquot.’

  ‘Daniel, it’s Al.’ The gravelly voice was unmistakable. Al Grenier, the old-timer from Marseilles, the longest serving officer at police headquarters on rue de l’Evêché and the only man on the squad who’d never called Jacquot ‘Boss’, back in the days when he had worked Homicide.

  ‘Eh bien, my old friend . . .’ began Jacquot, a smile digging into his cheeks. It was a long time since they’d spoken.

  ‘I’m afraid your old friend has some bad news for you,’ interrupted Grenier. His tone w
as business-like, controlled.

  An immediate chill settled over Jacquot and the smile was wiped away as he sat up at his desk, heart suddenly beating fast. ‘Who?’ he asked. Bad news from Grenier could only mean someone down, one of the boys in the Homicide squad killed or seriously hurt.

  ‘None of the boys. It’s Claude’s wife . . . Minette.’

  The news hit Jacquot like a bunched fist to the solar plexus, the breath driven from his body.

  Minette? Minette Peluze? It couldn’t be.

  In an instant he could see her. Round cheeks, hands on wide hips, a ringing laugh that would wake a sleeping elephant. And then, up close: her sweet, enchanting smile; her naughty, twinkly eyes; her bubbly wit and humour; the way she rock ’n’ rolled – no one like her on the dance floor – and Claude, her husband, looking as though he was marking time, tapping his feet, swinging his hips, spinning her round. Jacquot could see it all in a flash. Of all the wives on the squad, of all the girlfriends, lovers, partners, occasionals, there was no one like Claude’s wife Minette. Over the years she had played mother-hen to any number of young detectives starting out on rue de l’Evêché, and there wasn’t a man on the squad who would hear a word said against her. If police headquarters had a resident saint it was Minette Peluze.

  As Jacquot remembered all this, a deep sadness settled over him, a griping emptiness that settled into his belly.

  A heart attack, that’s what it would be. Just too much fizz, too much brio, for that mighty heart of hers to sustain.

  Or a car crash. She was, after all, the world’s worst driver.

  Or maybe a stroke. Out of the blue. No warning.

  In her kitchen, Jacquot hoped. That would be the best place. With its country range, and herbs tied in bunches and hung from the ceiling beams, with its scrubbed oak table and its stacked shelves of Kilner jars – containing everything from star anise to webbed mace, vanilla pods to cumin. The conserves and confits. No one cooked like Minette. Everyone on the squad treasured an invitation to dine with the Peluze family. Her gigots and carrés, her boulettes and beignets, her soupes and salades, lasagnes and moussakas and gratins . . . it was a happy man who came into Maison Peluze to find Minette in an apron, her kitchen warm and steamy and filled with appetising aromas. Jacquot remembered the last time he’d seen her, the previous winter coming to the kitchen table with that cast-iron Staub casserole of hers held high and steaming, filled with her legendary pot-au-feu. On a chill winter’s eve, after a long day chasing bad guys, there was nothing like it.

  And now she was gone. And Claude, Jacquot knew, would be devastated. The ex-legionnaire and loyal sidekick would have gone down hard. Never a birthday went by, or Christmas or an anniversary, without that tough old man racking his brains for something new to give his wife, to excite and thrill her.

  ‘How?’ asked Jacquot, grateful that Al had given him some time to take in the news.

  ‘At first, it looked like she’d had a stroke or a heart attack. Lying on the sofa, a load of shopping in the kitchen – their anniversary, for God’s sake – and Claude with the whole weekend off.’

  ‘Who found her?’

  ‘Her daughter called by with the grandchildren . . . You can imagine. The kids thought Nana was asleep.’

  Jacquot paused. He hadn’t been listening properly. There was something he’d only just registered.

  ‘You said “At first”.’

  ‘That’s right, Daniel. Someone killed her. Smothered she was, though she was left to look like she’d nodded off. She’d taken out her dentures, set them on a side-table. Like she was just taking a nap. It wasn’t till the ambulance people got there that they noticed the broken blood vessels in her eyes. Then there was the bruising round her knees, and traces of blood and skin tissue under her nails. Probably from the person holding the cushion. Two assailants by the look of it – maybe more – but nothing stolen. Like it was her they were after.’

  ‘How’s Claude?’

  Al grunted.

  ‘You need me to tell you?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘There’s a funeral, day after tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. La Bouilladisse, out past Aubagne. It’s where she grew up. A family crypt even. I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘You and everyone else.’

  13

  AL GRENIER WASN’T WRONG. THEY were all there – family, friends, local dignitaries. Black suits and civic sashes and Légion buttonholes, even dress uniforms for the heads of the Police Nationale and Gendarmerie. And not a black armband in sight; for Minette Peluze there could be no such informality. And every man jack from the squad on rue de l’Evêché was there. They must have closed up headquarters, Jacquot thought to himself; there couldn’t have been many left behind.

  A funeral service had been held earlier that morning, for family only, at Église St-Croix in La Bouilladisse, but the interment in the town’s old cemetery was open to all. The cemetery was smaller than Marseilles’ St-Pierre, a long rectanglar plot of land on the crown of a wooded hill above the town, and by the time Jacquot arrived, actually caught behind the cortège as it wound its way up the hill from the church, most of the allée and gravelled path around the Martine family crypt was tight with mourners, a wide, spilling pool of black against the glaring limestone. By the time he’d joined the crowd, having parked some distance down the road from the cemetery gates, the casket had been taken from the hearse by pallbearers and was being blessed by a curé dressed in brilliant white lace surplice and purple stole. Over the heads and shoulders of the mourners, nodding to familiar faces turned in his direction, and with the advantage of his place on the slope, Jacquot was able to see the flick of holy water and the sign of the cross from the curé as the pallbearers prepared to carry the casket into the crypt.

  As they moved forward Jacquot caught sight of Claude Peluze, standing with his daughter and grandchildren and son-in-law. Jacquot was too far away to make him out in any detail, even with the slope in his favour, but the lowered head and sagging shoulders of his old friend told Jacquot all he needed to know.

  It was exactly then that he noticed something else, a movement away from the crowd of mourners, beyond the Martine crypt, higher up the hill near the cemetery gates. Two figures dressed in black. In trousers and coats, by the look of it. Two men? A man and a woman? Two women? It was difficult to tell from this distance. All he could say for sure was that they looked like mourners, visiting a family grave. But then one of them raised an arm and shielded his or her eyes against the sun, clearly looking in their direction. Hardly surprising given the crowd gathered around the crypt, spilling across the allée, quite a size for a small cemetery in a small sleeper suburb of Marseilles.

  But there was something in the way the figure moved. Bold, direct, curious. Shielding eyes. Watching.

  And with the shock of sudden recall, Jacquot had it. The photos back in Cavaillon. The two unidentified figures at the Blanchard wedding.

  In the churchyard.

  In the street.

  At the Blanchards’ gates.

  But it was a ridiculous idea – to imagine that the same two possible suspects from the Blanchard wedding might also be here in La Bouilladisse. It was a cemetery, for goodness sake, open to anyone to visit a family grave, to pay their respects. That’s all they were, a couple of mourners momentarily distracted by the sight of the crowd down the slope – nothing more. He shook away the troubling thought; so unlikely, so . . . ridiculous. Yet he kept his eyes on them, darting between them and Minette’s casket as it was manhandled into the shadowed interior of the family crypt. And as the casket disappeared, the two distant figures turned and went back up the path, as though their visit was at an end and they were headed home.

  For a moment Jacquot didn’t know what to do: whether to stay where he was or go after them, get a closer look at them, maybe ask for their names, see what car they drove. What any policeman would think of doing; following up, on the off
-chance.

  But it was ridiculous. Quite ridiculous.

  There was no possible reason to suppose . . .

  Yet even if he’d decided to do it, there was no time now. The pallbearers re-emerged from the crypt and the gates were closed with a jarring clang, the family turned to their limousine and the crowd of mourners began to disperse, making their way to their own cars. As the black-clad pool spread out, thinned, it didn’t take long for the boys from rue de l’Evêché to gather round Jacquot: Al Grenier, who’d made the call, Luc Dutoit, Etienne Laganne, Charlie Serre, and the stutterer Pierre Chevin. Hands were clasped, backs slapped, but the greetings were quiet, the smiles quick and strained.

  ‘You coming to the house?’ asked Laganne, pulling a cigarette pack from his pocket, shuffling some out, offering them round. All except Al Grenier, who didn’t smoke, helped themselves, snapped lighters and settled into a loose circle. With a frown Laganne regarded the empty packet, crumpled it and was about to chuck it away when he remembered where he was, balling it up and slipping it back into his pocket instead.

  ‘It’s at their daughter Laura’s house,’ said Charlie Serre, Laganne’s partner. ‘Up in the hills above Roquevaire. On the way back to the autoroute.’

  ‘She’s done all Minnie’s recipes,’ added Laganne, as though that was all the excuse they needed. ‘Apparently it was stipulated in the will. “When they come and get me I want feasting. I want everyone to have one last taste. And remember.” Something like that.’

  ‘So w-w-w-we’ll be eating w-w-w-well,’ said Pierre Chevin, running a finger between his tanned jowls and stiff white collar.

  ‘If anyone’s got an appetite,’ replied Al.

  14

  IT WAS ANOTHER LONG WALK for Minette’s farewell luncheon. By the time Jacquot and the boys arrived at the daughter’s house on the slopes above Roquevaire there was nowhere to park within two blocks of the impasse where the family lived.